


Pull the Blow

by grey_sw (grey)



Category: Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-18 04:57:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grey/pseuds/grey_sw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clu and Rinzler celebrate the launch of the Rectifier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pull the Blow

The observation deck on the Throne Ship was dark, for once, lit only by the soft glow of the city below. The Rectifier was on-line at last, bringing Clu's private initiative one step closer to completion, and he and Rinzler had retired in order to celebrate. They lay sprawled out on the lounge before the window, warm and sweaty and a little bit sticky, the both of them pleasantly tired-out.

"So, what do you think?" Clu asked. He wasn't talking about the sex. "How much longer, how many more cycles before the system is truly perfect?"

Rinzler said nothing, as if he knew that Clu hadn't expected an answer. Clu gave him an indulgent glance. His helmet was off, but his usual low gravel-growl still issued from him, as if it was flowing out of his swollen lips... or, perhaps, out of the ragged, black-pixel fissure that stretched from the bottom of his jaw down across his neck.

Clu frowned at the sight of it, just a little. He hadn't meant to pull that blow. He'd _meant_ to rip Tron's goddamn head off, but somehow he couldn't... and in the aftermath he had only wanted to fix him, to put him back together. He'd done it, too, done it better than Flynn himself could have -- Flynn would never have made Rinzler -- but he'd never been able to heal that wound. Too much code was bound up in it. _Tron's_ code was bound up in it, and Clu was unable to tug it free without sparking error and corruption and disloyalty.

Rinzler would always be wounded, then, always wordless, for as long as he and Clu existed in the system. He would always rumble like a light cycle with a few bytes of damaged code, and that was fair enough. He was happier as Rinzler, _better_ as Rinzler, free from the pain and frustration of serving a User who was never there, never warm and present.

Clu was there, always there for his people, and the happy purr that spilled from Rinzler's throat proved it.

The Rectifier proved it, once and for all.

Rinzler shifted, then, nuzzling against the circuit-ladder on Clu's chest. The touch sent warm energy spooling into Clu's system, feeding his glow until it lit the room in gold. In return, he laid his left hand over the small of Rinzler's back, over the old-system circuits which still twinkled there, delicate and orange. He reached with his other hand to stroke Rinzler's hair, soft as always; he used one finger to lift it up and away from the hole in his jaw, careful as ever not to touch it.

"Clu," Rinzler murmured, in his quiet, broken voice. He wrapped his arms around Clu's chest, skin to skin, circuit to circuit. Then he laid the intact side of his face down upon him, just where Clu's heart would have been if he'd had one, and squeezed him tight.

"Rinzler," Clu answered. "My Rinzler."

He held Rinzler close, resting his hands on his shoulders like a benediction, and thought once again of his initiative. Someday soon they'd be free; someday soon they would conquer. It was a risk, admittedly: even with Flynn's disc, there was no guarantee that Clu and his people could even make the transition, and no way of knowing whether they could defeat the armies they found beyond the portal. But they had to try. Perfection built within a cage was no perfection at all.

Rinzler sighed against him, like a weary motor, and Clu held him tighter. It _would_ work. It would. They would vanquish their enemies together, and then their system would prosper. All Clu's people would live in perfect joy, together beneath the Users' sun. Rinzler would heal there, slowly, the way Users did, and when he pressed his ear to Clu's chest he would hear a sound, a living heartbeat to match his purr.

To be real, alive and free at last -- that, Clu thought, was perfectly worth dying for.


End file.
